


Tempting, Taunting, and Teasing Fate

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Dead To Me (TV), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24542044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Beverly Katz is dead but not alone. George Lass is there for her, right next to her nightmarish death tableaux and ready to help her face it. Maybe even find the humor in it.
Relationships: Beverly Katz/George Lass, Beverly Katz/herself, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 12





	Tempting, Taunting, and Teasing Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, this involves a crazy sense of humor in the face of a disturbing death, but it’s a Reaper and a coroner confronting it. This was inspired by the Hannibal Season 2 extras where Hettienne Park kissed her mutilated model. I could see George Lass and Beverly Katz being friends. A pity Beverly couldn't stick around to be one but she’s got lights to follow and George needs to lead her to them. This is also involves a brief reference to Ellen Muth’s own role on Hannibal as Georgia Madchen. I wanted to come up with a reason for why Beverly went down to that basement, which seemed like tempting fate. Here she is explaining it to me. I own neither Hannibal nor Dead Like Me, but I’ve fallen in love with both shows, Hannigram, and George Lass. I also wanted Beverly to get a last moment of sass in.

I’ve seen some disturbing shit as a Reaper. Few deaths were quite as bad as Beverly Katz’s. Part of the disturbing is there was something almost artistic about how Hannibal Lecter sliced her up.

Who is Hannibal Lecter? Only one of the most frightening serial killers to prey upon the living. Believe me, I know. I’d crossed his path briefly, reaping my lonely doppelganger, Georgia Madchen. Yeah, I know, it’s really on the nose since I used to be George Lass. She’s what I might have been like if I’d lived. Considering what happened to her, it showed me the upside of being killed by a toilet seat. I mean, sure, she had experiences I never did. Madness, doubt about being alive, and a beautiful and sensitive young man offering an unstable hand to her. Will Graham got Georgia, he really got her, the way I’m not sure anyone got me. I might be envious if not for the way her story ended. You see, Will had an extremely possessive psychiatrist, Possessive and psychotic. 

Yeah, that was Hannibal Lecter. Excuse me, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Hence my reaping Georgia after she became the Girl on Fire. Literally. Unfortunately for Georgia, her fire wasn’t quenched by a change of costume. 

Poor Beverly Katz had been just as unlucky as Georgia. Unlucky and for a smart woman, oddly stupid. At least at a moment when it really counted. 

“I got to ask.” I turned to Beverly’s ghost. “Why did you go down to Hannibal Lecter’s basement? I mean, you had the kidney. Why tempt fate like that?”

“Pretty stupid, huh?” Beverly shook her head. “The truth is I’ve never been able to resist a spooky basement, an unstable F.B.I. agent, or a truly weird piece of art.” 

I paused to consider her words. “I don’t get it,” I said, but I found myself recalling Betty, deciding on impulse to leap into her reaped soul’s afterlife. Maybe it was something like that. You see an edge, you know it’s dangerous. You keep approaching it, tempted to leap off, until you finally do it. 

“Hannibal was a colleague and a friend, not to mention a very attractive man. It’s a little scary, how attractive he was.” Beverly’s ghost pushed an afterimage of what once had been a strand of dark hair back from her face. “What’s more, every instinct I had told me that he cared deeply about Will Graham. I needed more than just a kidney to believe that he was the Chesapeake Ripper.” She let out a wry chuckle. “Did I ever get it.”

“Did you ever.” I shook my head, mirroring her own past action. “Was it worth it?” 

“I don’t know. Right now all I’m feeling is regret.” Beverly moved up to the slice with the most of her face preserved in glass. “Not the least that someone as hot as me had to die.”

Bemused, I watched while Beverly pressed her spectral lips to her own mutilated face. They passed right through the material. 

“Poor Will. He’s going to be devastated. Poor Jimmy and Z…I’m not sure how they’ll keep from fighting without me to referee.” Beverly turned back to me. “I really hope Hannibal doesn’t feed me to them, or Jack. At least he can’t feed me to Will. Not while Will is institutionalized.”

“What do you think he’ll make of you?” Yeah, it’s a morbid, disturbing question, but death gives reapers a morbid, disturbing sense of humor. At least I wasn’t as twisted as the gravelings. They followed Hannibal Lecter around, hanging around him while he prepared people for consumption like a bunch of lovesick fangirls.

Thing was Beverly Katz had dealt with Death long before it took her in his arms, taking the shape of a way too sexy cannibal. Maybe a morbid sense of humor was the way to her heart, her inner peace, her lights. At least I hoped so. 

“I don’t know.” Beverly took my arm, not seeming at all bothered by my question. “Maybe pasta? I really like the idea of being some kind of carbonara, like they make in Rome. Only I’m not sure if kidneys work for that.” 

Coroners developed as twisted a sense of humour as reapers, it seemed. A pity Beverly was about to move on. She could have been good company. 

“I think he’ll turn you into a pie.” I accepted her arm, strolling with Beverly toward her hereafter. “It’s classic, like in Sweeney Todd.”

“I don’t know, I’m not sure if Hannibal ever prepared pie. It may not be posh enough for him.”

“Nah, you’re a scientist. It’s gotta be pie.”

**Author's Note:**

> The girl on fire was a reference to Katniss and The Hunger Games. Besides that, I’ve got this vision of Season 4 with Jimmy Price headed down to Buffalo Bill’s basement with Clarisse Starling racing like Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Becoming Part 1 to save him…which do you find scarier? Attics or basements?


End file.
